This invention relates to a process for producing pulp, having unique proprieties, from virgin wood constituents or from waxed paper and using the pulp as an additive for non-paper industry type products such as toothpaste, shampoo, soap, detergent and lotions or creams. The pulp also can be used for toys, ground cover and to simulate snow.
Most paper is made from plant fiber, most often wood, in a process that separates the cellulose from the other plant fiber material. Cellulose, the major constituent of plant fibers, is a carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are convertible into glucose by hydrolysis; a chemical process of decomposition. Under appropriate conditions the bacteria present in the paper making process contributes to and hastens decomposition. As a result, cellulose pulp material maintained in a hydrous state has a very short shelf life.
In the paper making process, water is driven from the cellulose pulp and the remaining fiber is dried in one continuous operation. Thus decomposition of the cellulose pulp is not a problem. However, if the process is suspended with the cellulose pulp in the hydrous state, for example over 90% water, the pulp has a very short shelf life. This short shelf life has been a major obstacle to the development of non-paper industry uses for hydrous cellulose pulp. Generally speaking, hydrous cellulose pulp is vulnerable to decomposition regardless whether the pulp is derived from virgin vegetable constituents or from a paper recycling operation.
Waxed paper is customarily manufacture by forming the paper sheet first then treating the sheet with an application of wax coating, either in dry or liquid form. For example, molten paraffin wax is easily applied by continuously passing a paper sheet through a molten bath of wax, removing the excess and then chilling. Such waxed papers have excellent resistance to water vapor, are free from odor, taste and toxicity and are low in cost.
At one time waste waxed paper presented problems in the paper recycling industry. When waste wax paper was recycled waxy spots would appear on the resulting recycled paper and a wax coating would collect on the equipment thus fouling the recycling process. Consequently, the resulting recycled paper was considered inferior and it was often necessary to stop the process so that the equipment could be adequately cleaned.
The problem, with recycling waste waxed paper, was solved however by adding a water dispersible non-ionic emulsifiers to the pulper during the repulping phase of the recycling process. The mixture containing the emulsifier is mechanically agitated at a temperature sufficiently high to melt the wax, for example from approximately 150.degree. to 190.degree. Fahrenheit. This process produced an emulsified wax-fiber slurry having a solids consistency of from approximately 4% to 6% by weight. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,808,089 and 3,822,178, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference, fully discloses the above described process. As is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,822,178, the water soluble non-ionic emulsifiers used in the process are selected from the group consisting of polyethylene glycol ethers of hydrophobic alcohols, alkylphenoxy polyethoxyethanols, fatty acid amides and mixtures thereof and meet the following emulsion stability standard. Emulsifiers for practicing this invention include: the ethoxylated aliphatic alcohols wherein the alcohol is a hydrophobic secondary alcohol having from 11 to 15 carbon atoms and wherein the average molar ratio of ethylene oxide to hydrophobic alcohol is in a range of 5:1 to 15:1; ethoxylated alkyl phenols in which the ratio of moles of ethylene oxide per mole or ethylene oxide per mole of alkyl phenol is in the range of 7-8 inclusive; ethoxylated alkyl phenols in which the alkyl substituent is linear; and the fatty acid amide diethanol amine condensates derived from a member selected from the group consisting of myristic acid, lauric acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid and mixtures thereof.
The hydrous cellulose pulp produced in this process for recycling waste waxed paper has the property of an unlimited shelf life.